1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a file management apparatus and method, and a storage system; for example, one that is ideal for adoption in a storage system including a storage apparatus having the NAS (Network Attached Storage) function.
2. Description of Related Art
Recently, the need for file-sharing services using NAS has been increasing year by year. Also, in network systems that provide these file-sharing services, the frequency of access to NAS tends to increase with an increase in the capacity of the files shared.
Under these circumstances, JP-A-2003-162439 discloses a storage system having a plurality of NAS interfaces, each NAS interface having at least one of a block interface that processes disk block-based I/O requests and a file interface that processes file-based I/O requests, wherein a file system that can be accessed from a plurality of file servers is created on a disk, and wherein a log storing area that retains an update log for the file system, and a management file server information storing area that retains information related to a management file server that performs the exclusion control of the file system and manages the log storing area are created in shared memory.
According to this method, it is possible for a plurality of NAS interfaces to access an identical file system, thereby providing a highly-reliable storage system in which data will not be lost even when a failure occurs.